DETAILED ACTION
Notice of Pre-AIA or AIA Status
The present application, filed on or after March 16, 2013, is being examined under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA .
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
In the event the determination of the status of the application as subject to AIA 35 U.S.C. 102 and 103 (or as subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 102 and 103) is incorrect, any correction of the statutory basis for the rejection will not be considered a new ground of rejection if the prior art relied upon, and the rationale supporting the rejection, would be the same under either status.
This application currently names joint inventors. In considering patentability of the claims the examiner presumes that the subject matter of the various claims was commonly owned as of the effective filing date of the claimed invention(s) absent any evidence to the contrary. Applicant is advised of the obligation under 37 CFR 1.56 to point out the inventor and effective filing dates of each claim that was not commonly owned as of the effective filing date of the later invention in order for the examiner to consider the applicability of 35 U.S.C. 102(b)(2)(C) for any potential 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(2) prior art against the later invention.
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 103 which forms the basis for all obviousness rejections set forth in this Office action:
A patent for a claimed invention may not be obtained, notwithstanding that the claimed invention is not identically disclosed as set forth in section 102 of this title, if the differences between the claimed invention and the prior art are such that the claimed invention as a whole would have been obvious before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to a person having ordinary skill in the art to which the claimed invention pertains. Patentability shall not be negated by the manner in which the invention was made.
The factual inquiries set forth in Graham v. John Deere Co., 383 U.S. 1, 148 USPQ 459 (1966), that are applied for establishing a background for determining obviousness under 35 U.S.C. 103 are summarized as follows:
1. Determining the scope and contents of the prior art.
2. Ascertaining the differences between the prior art and the claims at issue.
3. Resolving the level of ordinary skill in the pertinent art.
4. Considering objective evidence present in the application indicating obviousness or nonobviousness.
Claim(s) 1,2,8,9,11, and 15 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Fleureau US 20230379495 in view of Van Geest EP 4199516.
Regarding claim 1, Fleureau disclose(s) the following claim limitations:
A method for encoding a multi-plane image (MPI)-based volumetric video, comprising:
generating an MPI for each frame according to time change from a plurality of multi-viewpoint images (i.e. MPI represents a frame of a 3d image) [3,32,40; fig. 1];
generating a first atlas (i.e. atlas image generated using the MPI) [32-34; fig. 1]; and
encoding the first atlas and the second atlas to generate a bitstream, respectively (i.e. atlas images encoded using MPEG for immersive video (MIV)) [33,47; fig 2].
Fleureau do/does not explicitly disclose(s) the following claim limitations:
identifying a dynamic region and a static region within the MPI for each frame;
generating a first atlas based only on the dynamic region and a second atlas based only on the static region; and
encoding the first atlas and the second atlas to generate a bitstream, respectively
However, in the same field of endeavor Van Geest discloses the deficient claim limitations, as follows:
identifying a dynamic region and a static region within the MPI for each frame (i.e. regions can be marked as static) [11,20-21,27];
generating a first atlas based only on the dynamic region and a second atlas based only on the static region (i.e. static regions may be packed into an atlas which only includes static regions and other image regions may be packed into a main atlas frame.) [27-29]; and
encoding the first atlas and the second atlas to generate a bitstream, respectively (i.e. encode video sequences 708) [30,143-144; fig. 7].
It would have been obvious to one with ordinary skill in the art at the time of filing to modify the teachings of Fleureau with Van Geest to have identify a dynamic region and a static region within the MPI for each frame; generating a first atlas based only on the dynamic region and a second atlas based only on the static region; and encoding the first atlas and the second atlas to generate a bitstream, respectively.
It would be advantageous because "However, it does so with the advantage of a reduced bitrate as well as reduced pixel rate compared to transmitting the original full multi-view data set.” [5].
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one with ordinary skill, in the art at the time of filing, to modify the teachings of Fleureau with Van Geest to obtain the invention as specified in claim 1.
Regarding claim 2, Van Geest meets the claim limitations, as follows:
The method of claim 1, wherein transforms of different policies are applied to the first atlas and the second atlas, respectively (i.e. TLoD values change the Quantization Parameter (QPs). QP is an important part of the transform procedure.) [118,125,126,128-130,136].
Claim 2 is combined using similar rationale as claim 1.
Claim 8 is rejected using similar rationale as claim 1 and further below.
Fleureau meets the claim limitations, as follows:
processor and memory [63]
Claim 9 is rejected using similar rationale as claim 2.
Claim 11 is rejected using similar rationale as claim 4.
Claim 15 is rejected using similar rationale as claim 1.
Claim(s) 3 and 10 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Fleureau and Van Geest in view of Hamza US 20230188751.
Regarding claim 3, Fleureau and Van Geest do/does not explicitly disclose(s) the following claim limitations:
wherein the transforms include a discrete cosine transform (DCT).
However, in the same field of endeavor Hamza discloses the deficient claim limitations, as follows:
wherein the transforms include a discrete cosine transform (DCT) [86].
It would have been obvious to one with ordinary skill in the art at the time of filing to modify the teachings of Fleureau and Van Geest with Hamza to have the transforms include a discrete cosine transform (DCT).
It would be advantageous because using a DCT as the transform is a well-known and commonly used transform for video encoding/decoding.
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one with ordinary skill, in the art at the time of filing, to modify the teachings of Fleureau and Van Geest with Hamza to obtain the invention as specified in claim 3.
Claim 10 is rejected using similar rationale as claim 3.
Claim(s) 4, 6, 11, and 13 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Fleureau and Van Geest in view of Li US 20190251734.
Regarding claim 4, Fleureau and Van Geest do/does not explicitly disclose(s) the following claim limitations:
wherein in generating the first atlas, a single first geometry atlas that does not change over time is generated for the dynamic region, and a first texture atlas is generated for each frame using the first geometry atlas
However, in the same field of endeavor Li discloses the deficient claim limitations, as follows:
wherein in generating the first atlas, a single first geometry atlas that does not change over time is generated for the dynamic region, and a first texture atlas is generated for each frame using the first geometry atlas (i.e. consistent texture atlas and consistent mesh (geometry) sequence used in atlas generation.) [6].
It would have been obvious to one with ordinary skill in the art at the time of filing to modify the teachings of Fleureau and Van Geest with Li when in generating the first atlas, a single first geometry atlas that does not change over time is generated for the dynamic region, and a first texture atlas is generated for each frame using the first geometry atlas.
It would be advantageous because "Specifically, the format allows the data for each segment to be sent independently of data for any other segments, and therefore it is not necessary for the receiving device to wait for all of the data to be received before beginning to render and display images, nor is it necessary for the receiving device to begin rendering with any particular segment.” [7].
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one with ordinary skill, in the art at the time of filing, to modify the teachings of Fleureau and Van Geest with Li to obtain the invention as specified in claim 4.
Regarding claim 6, Li meets the claim limitations, as follows:
The method of claim 1, wherein in generating the second atlas, a single second geometry atlas is generated for the static region, and a single second texture atlas that does not change over time is generated using the second geometry atlas (i.e. atlas generation of Li could be used on second atlas of Van Geest) [6].
Claim 11 is combined using similar rationale as claim 4.
Claim 13 is rejected using similar rationale as claim 6.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 5,7,12,14 are objected to as being dependent upon a rejected base claim, but would be allowable if rewritten in independent form including all of the limitations of the base claim and any intervening claims.
Contact Information
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to JARED T WALKER whose telephone number is (571)272-1839. The examiner can normally be reached M-F: 8:00 - 4:30 Mountain.
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/Jared Walker/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2426